Paushya Parva
This parva contains one chapter and 188 verses. This parva tells in detail the greatness of service to a teacher. The serpent sacrifice, which forms the seed of the Mahabharata story, is also described in this section only. Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit,was performing a long Satra sacrifice along with his brothers. When the celestial dog Saurameya came there,Janamejaya’s brothers beat it. The whimpering dog went to its mother and told her what had happened. Anguished at the suffering of her puppy,Surama approached them and chided them for beating her innocent child. She cursed them to face an unexpected scare. (This was the first curse in the Bharata.) Janamejaya felt dejected because of that curse. After the sacrifice was over, in order to absolve themselves of the sin that resulted in a curse, he engaged Somasravas, the son of sage Srutasravas as his priest. He and his brothers started to act on the advice of their priest. During those days there was a famous sage named Ayoda Dhaumya. He had three disciples in Aruni, Upamanyu and Veda. The teacher, who was a hard task master used to test his disciples in a hard way. And he would bless them if they passed his trials. He tested Aruni by asking him to repair the breached field, and blessed him when the latter accomplished it. Dhaumya asked his second disciple Upamanyu to tend the cattle and put some conditions on the latter’s begging of alms. The boy lost his sight while adhering to those rules.Then the teacher graced him by making him invoke the twin gods Aswins.Veda also passed his master’s tests and was blessed by him. Later Veda acquired three disciples.He was familiar with the hardships faced by a resident scholar in his preceptor’s abode. His disciple Uttanka received the blessings of teacher by conducting himself in a righteous manner. Having completed his studies, Uttanka expressed his desire of offering gurudakshina to his teacher. On the latter’s advice, he approached his preceptor’s wife, who commanded him to bring the earrings of the wife of King Paushya. She desired to wear them on the occasion of Punyakavrata four days from thence. Uttanka set out for the palace of Paushya.On his way he saw a big man seated on the back of a bull.Acting on his advice, Uttanka ate the excreta of that bull and drank its urine.However, in his excitement, he took his ablutions in a standing posture, and went to the king. Satisfied with Uttanka’s eligibility, the king directed him to the queen’s apartments. But the boy did not find her there. So he again went to the king. Paushya told him that an impure person could not see the queen. Then Uttanka performed the purifying ablution and hurried to the queen’s quarters. When he begged her to give the ear-rings,she presented them to him and warned him to be careful as the serpent Takshaka coveted them. When Uttanka went to take leave of the king, the latter requested him to be his guest for meals as he was a qualified Brahmin. Having found a hair in the food served to him,Uttanka cursed the king to become blind for serving impure food. The king also cursed the Brahmin to become childless.And both of them requested the other to lift the curse. But the king expressed his inability to remove his curse as he was of royal blood.Uttanka lifted his curse on the king and went his way taking his gift. On the way, Takshaka stole the ear-rings. Uttanka followed him to the nether world, got back the ear-rings and found his way out from there with the help of a great being to hand over in time the ear-rings to his preceptor’s wife.The virtuous Uttanka, however, developed animosity towards Takshaka, and to take revenge on him,approached King Janamejaya, and encouraged him to perform the serpent sacrifice. The purpose of the episode of Uttanka is the encouragement for the performance of the serpent sacrifice.Summary by Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha References Category:Adi Parva